Khrushchev in love

I’m a bit upset by the following bit from F.J.M. Feldbrugge’s Samizdat and Political Dissent in the Soviet Union:

“Perhaps the most serious aspect of the verbal intoxication with such terms as ‘progressive meaning’, ‘objective inevitability’ and the like, is the failure of the Marxists-Leninists to appreciate fully the absolute inhumanity of Stalinist rule and the absolute necessity for its utter and total rejection. … Another element of irrealism encountered among Marxist-Leninist dissidents is their dream of pure and pristine Leninism, which was unfortunately interrupted by the Stalinist nightmare. … Presumably there is a half-conscious awareness that somehow the succession and the success of Stalin was not purely accidental. … The prevailing mood, however, of the ‘loyal dissidents’ remains that the Revolution was a ‘positive’ phenomenon and that in some way a connection must be found between the ideals of Lenin’s Revolution and the present. … Will a return to Leninism [hoped for by some dissident writers] imply that everything will be done over again including perhaps a return to Stalinism? ” (80)

My upset is kind of connected with the phrase “absolute inhumanity of Stalinist rule”, and it is kind of connected with “the failure of the Marxists-Leninists to appreciate fully”, and a little with the “absolute necessity for its utter and total rejection”. It is also connected with the logic of the argument here: the “succession and the success of Stalin was not purely accidental” and, in fact, “a return to Leninism impl[ies] that everything will be done over again including … a return to Stalinism” – that is, that Stalinism was the historically necessary outcome of the revolution – but, there is also an “absolute necessity for its utter and total rejection”. It is an “element of irrealism” on the part of “Marxist-Leninist” dissidents to imagine any other connection between the revolution and Stalinism than the one Feldbrugge imagines, and imagines to be historically necessary, and yet they are also under the imperative to reject that historically necessary Stalinism. The philosophy 101 argument I want to pull out here is that either things are necessary or they aren’t: If Stalinism is the historically necessary outcome of the revolution, then surely the revolution was the historically necessary outcome of something else, etc. And if this is all the case, then surely the “Marxist-Leninist” dissidents’ reaction to their environments is just as historically necessary, as is Feldbrugge’s attitude toward their reactions. And maybe my own. But assuming that this isn’t the case, seriously Feldbrugge, WTF?

I think, though, the most disturbing thing about this bit (and maybe it doesn’t come across in the heavily excerpted quote above) is the attitude it takes toward Soviet dissidents, as if Feldbrugge, the [admittedly, presumed] outsider is coming in and schooling native Russians who lived through Stalinism on what attitudes they should take toward it. It reminds me of adults who take a condescending attitude toward children and say things like “you need to change your attitude, little mister!”  WTF Feldbrugge, WTF?